African American Youth and their Lack of Interest in Black History Month

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Cultural identity is a person’s background and how it refers to that person or groups culture, what you eat, think, and the actions that you take are all parts of the cultural aspect of culture identity. If you was to ask someone what the culture identity of the African Americans were no matter the race of the person you asked they nine times out of ten would mention the importance of black history month, but while the races around us are able to recognize the importance of this historic month why is it that today’s generation of young African Americans don’t realize the importance of this month? The race of people it celebrates, has placed it on the back burner. Due to the rise of technology and social media in today’s age has taken the youth’s eyes off of what is culturally vital in the black community opposed to the generations that came before. Have you taken a look around lately? What do you see? When was the last time you walked around and actually seen a youth without some sort of technology in their hands. Technology and social media has almost completely taken over. New society is now revolving around all thing techie. Today’s generation is known as “Generation like”, to acknowledge the fact that everything that gets noticed in today’s society is only by social media. This has affected the African American culture greatly, todays black youth are far less likely to have an understanding of the rich legacy celebrated by Black History Month than let’s say their grandparent’s generation. The average grandparent’s generation started in the late 50’s a time where they would have been directly affected by the Civil Rights Movement and other major events that were taking place in in the Black community. They were the... ... middle of paper ... ... also influences them to partake in negative activities. "Every film shouldn't have to be about some urban, hip-hop drug thing," (Lee.S) the way that blacks are portrayed in the eye of the media is nine times out of ten in a negative manner, this only adds on to the negative stereotypes that come along with being s African American. Music also affects the black youths close ties to fashion, and the news looks. The youth of today are so caught up if the new fads of today that they don’t even acknowledge or take time to educate themselves on their past, they are ignorant to the rich legacy that their ancestors have left behind. This generations has very little to no education about the past so what will they have to pass on to their children at this rate, if someone doesn’t swoop in and relocate the blacks focus to what’s important our rich legacy will soon disappear.

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